The present invention relates to transistors, and more specifically to voltage control of magnetism for non-volatile magnetic tunnel junction.
The continuous performance improvement derived from CMOS scaling over the past 40 years has come to an end. While density scaling is expected to continue for at least the next ten years, transistor and circuit-level performance is now severely limited by power constraints. The semiconductor industry has been aware of this issue for the last ten years and has tried a wide variety of modifications of the CMOS transistor in order to lower the voltage.
Traditionally, CMOS power has been contained by reducing the operating voltage in each generation. Supply voltages have thus scaled significantly from the 5V technologies used in the 1970's to approximately 1V technologies manufactured today. Further voltage reduction beyond 1V, however, is restricted by fundamental limits in threshold voltage and gate oxide thickness scaling.
Without sufficient voltage scaling, CMOS power has thus increased to the point where laptops are lap-warmers, high performance computing is limited by the cooling power available, and mobile computing performance is limited by battery life. It is fair to say that a low voltage transistor would fundamentally change the world.